Bibliographical Notices. 51 



BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. 



Contributions a Vitade des Boj^i/rlens. Par Alfred Giard et 

 Jules Bonxier. 4to. Lille, L. Dancl, I8S7. 



Our knowledge of the parasitic forms of Crustacea has increased 

 remarkably of late years, and with each advance that has been 

 made the interest attaching to them has widened. In 1840, when 

 Milne-Edwards published the third volume of his classical " Histoire 

 naturelle des Crustaces," the parasitic forms noticed by him, besides 

 the well-known Entomostracan fish-parasites, were limited to the 

 Ci/ami and three species of Bopyridie, namely an lone and two 

 Bopyri. In the same year, however, Davernoy described a species 

 of Bopyrian from the Mauritius as the type of a new genus to which 

 he gave the name of Kepon, and from that time the number of 

 known forms of Bopyrian and Cirripedian parasites has gone on 

 steidily, and indeed rapidly, increasing. In both groups the 

 animals infested have been for the most part Crustaceans of the 

 Decapod group, and it may be remarked that the study of the life- 

 history of the parasites has revealed some most curious circum- 

 stances in connexion with the phenomena of double parasitism 

 presented in some cases, the influence of the parasites upon the 

 external characters of the animals infested by them, and the singu- 

 lar taxonomic parallelism which appears in many instances to exist 

 between the parasites and their hosts. 



The keynote of these curious investigations was no doubt struck 

 by Dr. Fritz Miiller, the distinguished naturalist of Desterro, in his 

 contributions to the ' Archiv fiir Naturgescliichte ' and the ' Je- 

 naische Zeitschrift,' and in his remarkable work " Fiir Darwin ; ' 

 but many interesting points had already been indicated by Steen- 

 strup and LiUjeborg, and by Darwin himself, before the influence 

 of his ideas set Fritz Miiller to work upon the materials with which 

 the Brazilian coast furnished him for such researches. Since the 

 appearance of these memoirs, in 18(32 and 1864, and especially 

 within the last ten years, many European zoologists have worked 

 vigorously and successfully upon the investigation of these parasites, 

 particularly the Bopyride forms, with the result of adding greatly 

 to our knowledge of the European types and their life-history. 



A place in the front rank of these investigators must certainly be 

 assigned to Prof. Giard, one of the authors of the work of which the 

 title stands at the head of this notice ; with the aid of the resources 

 of the zoological laboratory at Wimereux, and by his own personal 

 researches on other parts of the French coast, he has accumulated 

 a great number of interesting details upon the Bopyride parasites, 

 which he has from time to time communicated in papers read before 

 the Academy of Sciences and elsewhere, translations of some of 

 which have appeared from time to time in our pages. 



Some two years ago, as we are told in the preface to the present 

 work, Prof. Giard and M. Jules Bonnier (Demonstrator at the labo- 



4* 



